USB problems

I have a new bespoke built PC with a ASUS ACPIx64 motherboard fitted with an Intel(R) Core(TM) i3-3240 CPU @ 3.4GHz and 8 Gb of RAM and everything has been running just fine until now. I use an external hard drive for my data and another for my backup both running on USB 2.0. My data drive crashed big time a few days ago and I was forced to get a new one. So thinking it wise to keep up with latest developments I decided to buy one that uses a SS 3.0 USB connection. Here's where my problems start. My PC does not recognise the new external drive when plugged into the SS 3.0 socket and nothing happens. It does however recognise it when I plug it into a USB 2.0 socket and it works seemingly very well however, I continually get messages that it would run faster if I plugged it into a USB 3.0 socket, so the PC does recognise really. All my other peripheral items running on USB 2.0 work fine when plugged into the SS 3.0 USB socket. I have Googled this problem but frankly none of the answers seem sensible.

Here is the log of my system;

Tech Support Guy System Info Utility version 1.0.0.2
OS Version: Microsoft Windows 7 Professional, Service Pack 1, 64 bit
Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM) i3-3240 CPU @ 3.40GHz, Intel64 Family 6 Model 58 Stepping 9
Processor Count: 4
RAM: 8144 Mb
Graphics Card: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 650, -2048 Mb
Hard Drives: C: Total - 426587 MB, Free - 249987 MB; E: Total - 953866 MB, Free - 748948 MB; G: Total - 49998 MB, Free - 49164 MB; Z: Total - 953867 MB, Free - 526034 MB;
Motherboard: ASUSTeK COMPUTER INC., P8H77-M
Antivirus: Microsoft Security Essentials, Updated and Enabled

I would really appreciate some help with this one Guys.